The Price
457 Words
Staying at Kerem’s was strange. His apartment was warm, lived-in, normal. There were no cold spots, no unexplained phenomena, no voices in her head. Just quiet.
“Make yourself at home,” Kerem said, showing her the guest room. “Stay as long as you need.”
That first night, Selin couldn’t sleep. Not because of fear or grief, but because of the silence. She’d grown so accustomed to Murat’s presence that his absence felt like missing a limb.
But she didn’t go back.
Days passed. Selin started feeling human again. She laughed at Kerem’s jokes. She cooked dinner without temperature drops ruining the food. She watched sunlight stream through windows without shadows that didn’t belong.
“You seem lighter,” Kerem observed one evening.
“I feel lighter. Like I can breathe again.”
“I’m glad.”
There was something unspoken between them—a possibility, a potential future. But neither pushed it. Kerem was content to just be her friend, her anchor to normalcy. And Selin was grateful for that.
Meanwhile, back at her apartment, Murat was unraveling. Without Selin, his connection to the living world felt tenuous. He was fading—not dying, but becoming less defined, less present.
“Come back,” he whispered to empty rooms. “Please come back.”
But Selin didn’t hear him. For the first time since his death, she was truly free.
After two weeks, she returned to the apartment to collect more things. The moment she entered, she felt the change. The air was heavy, oppressive. Murat appeared immediately.
“You left me,” he said. Not angry—devastated.
“I needed to.”
“For him?”
“For me. This isn’t about Kerem. This is about the fact that I couldn’t exist while you were consuming every part of my life.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll change. I’ll—”
“No, Murat. You can’t change. This is what you are now. And I can’t live with it anymore.”
She gathered her things quickly, efficiently. Murat watched, helpless. As she headed for the door, he said: “If you leave now, I might not be here when you come back. I’m fading, Selin. Without you, I’m disappearing.”
She paused, hand on the doorknob. “Maybe that’s for the best. For both of us.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t know what I mean anymore. But I know I can’t keep sacrificing my life for your afterlife.”
She left. Murat stood in the center of the empty apartment, feeling himself thin, dilute, dissolve.
And he wondered: was love supposed to hurt this much? Or had they twisted it into something it was never meant to be?
- Writer
